Distribution and optical purity of methamphetamine found in toxic concentration in a civil aviation accident pilot fatality

Toxicological evaluation of postmortem samples collected from a pilot involved in a unique fatal civil aircraft accident is described in this paper. A one-occupant airplane was substantially damaged upon colliding with terrain in poor visibility. Remains of the pilot were found outside the aircraft. Pathological examination revealed multiple blunt force injuries and vascular congestion. The fluorescence polarization immunoassay disclosed 8.0 microg/mL amphetamines in urine. Gas chromatographic/mass spectrometric analyses determined the presence of methamphetamine (1.13 microg/mL in blood and 59.2 microg/mL in urine) and amphetamine (0.022 microg/mL in blood and 1.50 microg/mL in urine). Methamphetamine was distributed throughout the body, including the brain. The amount of methamphetamine in gastric contents was 575-fold higher than that of amphetamine. The (+)- and (-)-forms of methamphetamine were present in equal proportions in gastric contents. The methamphetamine concentration found in blood was in the range sufficient to produce toxic effects, causing performance impairment.     

The crime vanishes: Mob lynching,hate crime,and police discretion in India

Jindal Global Law Review - Amidst high-profile incidents of hate violence against religious and caste minorities, the Indian Supreme Court laid down a series of guidelines to address mob violence...     

Terrorist victimization: A case study from India

The focus of terrorist victimization is largely upon the people hurt by terrorist groups or by state agencies acting in retaliation. However, victimization also comes from the policies and actions of the state that gives rise to the terrorism in the first place. This paper examines the nature of terrorist victimization in India. It focuses upon left‐wing terrorism in the state of Bihar and describes the anarchic situation prevailing there. The paper argues that victimization is coming both from the brutalities of the terrorist squads as well as the illegal actions of the police agencies. However, underlying these terrorist actions are government policies that have failed to address the democratic concerns of the citizens and which are unable to develop the economy. The paper also argues that it is necessary to ensure that state agencies do not go beyond the purview of legal boundaries. Only a state, dealing fairly, ensuring a rule of law and concerned about the victimization of all kinds can bring about the desired recovery of the people who alone suffer grievously.     

MAPS OF TIME,CLOCKS OF SPACE

When Asia was conceptualized as Europe's “other,” it was also cast as a temporally delimited concept: once capitalist modernity—assumed to operate evenly across the globe by conservatives, liberals, and the left—spread to eastern Eurasia, the differences between two unequal halves of the continent were expected to evaporate. The persistence of differences long after “Asia” was incorporated into the capitalist world-economy has led to a cartographic definition of the continent. Such definitions do not allow for historical processes that reshape relations between peoples, forging new links and severing old ones. This article traces the changing imaginaries of Asia historically. Since there are no indigenous conceptions of the continent, the author argues that the changing imaginaries of Asia are linked to wider geopolitical processes. When eastern Eurasia was subordinated to the drives of the capitalist world-economy, existing linkages were severed and territories were linked to, or through, colonial metropoles. After a brief period of autarkic development after decolonization, states along the Pacific coasts were increasingly integrated through production and procurement networks leading to a new imaginary of Asia. Since the end of the cold war and the emergence of independent states with large hydrocarbon resources in Central Asia, countries that were once excluded from cold war imaginaries of Asia—as well as India—are being integrated through newer imaginaries that reflect the greater prominence of China and India today as well as the rise of Islamic militancy and new ethnic conflicts.     

GEOPOLITICS AND NEW SPATIAL IMAGINARIES

The three articles that follow in this CAS feature collection—those by Candela, Harrar, and Fisher Onar—were first written for a workshop entitled “Shifting Geopolitical Ecologies and New Spatial Imaginaries,” during the third Inter- Asian Connections conference in Hong Kong, in June 2012. The aim of the workshop was to identify and bring into discussion emerging mental, cultural, and political conceptions of spatial categories in Asia. Workshop organizers Caglar Keyder and Ravi Arvind Palat introduce the articles below and Palat provides background and context for the articles in his own article, “Maps of Time, Clocks of Space: Changing Imaginaries of Asia” (397–410).     

Vitreous Fluid and/or Urine Glucose Concentrations in 1335 Civil Aviation Accident Pilot Fatalities*

Abstract: During aviation accident investigations, vitreous fluid and urine samples from pilot fatalities are analyzed for glucose and blood for hemoglobin A_1c (HbA_1c) to monitor diabetic pilots and to discover other pilots with undiagnosed/unreported diabetes. The prevalence of elevated glucose concentrations in fatally injured pilots was evaluated by searching the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute’s Toxicology Database for the period 1998–2005. Out of 1335 pilots involving 363 vitreous fluid, 365 urine, and 607 vitreous fluid and urine analyses, 43 pilots had elevated glucose in vitreous fluid (>125 mg/dL) and/or in urine (>100 mg/dL). Of the 20 pilots whose blood samples were analyzed, nine had >6% HbA_1c—four were known diabetics, and five were unknown diabetics. Urinary glucose levels were elevated in all 13 known hyperglycemic pilots. A considerable number of pilots (30 of 43) had elevated glucose and HbA_1c (5 of 20), suggesting undiagnosed/unreported diabetic conditions.